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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24350506">Ever So</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_Ash/pseuds/Miss_Ash'>Miss_Ash</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst and Fluff and Smut, F/M, Kinda, Porn With Feelingsy Plot-That-Isn't-Really-Plot-But-There-Are-Feelings, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Well some plot, feelingsy plot, one guess as to whose fault it is I wrote smut in the first place, there ya go fixed it</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 08:40:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,053</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24350506</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_Ash/pseuds/Miss_Ash</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“It really isn’t what you think it is,” Jack gasps out, and Phryne just glares back at him, trying to ignore the hurt that’s clawing at her insides, the way her heart feels ready to break in her chest. </p>
<p>“What is it then?” she snaps. “Were you <i>accidentally</i> sending your ex-wife love letters?”</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>An overspill from my main collection, for the Break Down The Door Challenge prompt, "Jack quotes Shakespeare at Phryne."</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Phryne Fisher &amp; Jack Robinson, Phryne Fisher/Jack Robinson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>125</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Break Down the Door Challenge</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Ever So</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeChatNoir1918/gifts">LeChatNoir1918</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p><strike>It is absolutely still the 26th of May and this isn't late I don't know what you're talking about</strike>. This was originally meant to be part of my 'many meanings of closeness' collection, but it started going waaaay over and, when I whined about this to LeChatNoir1918, she said "just make it even longer and add smut" - and I found that inspirational, so that's what I did. I then proceeded to whine even more as I dragged the words out kicking and screaming. My everlasting love and apologies to you, girl &lt;3</p>
<p>It's actually a combination of two prompts "Jack quotes Shakespeare at Phryne" and "Rosie gets remarried and invites Jack to the wedding". As is my wont, I bastardised both a prompt and poor Will, but the whole thing proved a fun experiment that I can't wait to never repeat.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Phryne, wait!”</p>
<p>She stops, though refuses to turn, folding her arms across herself, jaw clenching. </p>
<p>There’s an internal battle raging within her; a violent tug of war between the fact she’s curious what he might have to say for himself that will explain this and the fact she’s certain there’s really nothing he <em> can </em> say that will make it better, that will calm the tempest of emotion threatening to overwhelm her.</p>
<p>She doesn't manage to make up her mind either way before he catches up, sprinting ahead to face her, eyes desperate. </p>
<p>“It really isn’t what you think it is,” Jack gasps out, and Phryne just glares back at him, trying to ignore the hurt that’s clawing at her insides, the way her heart feels ready to break in her chest. </p>
<p>“What is it then?” she snaps. “Were you <em> accidentally </em> sending your ex-wife love letters?”</p>
<p>“It wasn’t a love letter, Phryne, it’s… it’s just suggestions.”</p>
<p>She gives him that, at the very least, he seems to realise exactly how bad this argument sounds immediately the words leave his mouth, but she doesn’t feel inclined to let him off the hook, staring him down in the silent shadows of his hallway with her heartbeat a steady echo in her ears. </p>
<p>“That isn’t… not like <em> that</em>, I just meant…” </p>
<p>“Yes?” she prompts, though, when he trails off to run a hand over his face, words seeming to fail him. “Please, Jack, do tell me why you’re sending romantic <em> suggestions </em> to Rosie.”</p>
<p>Jack sighs, the action heavy, and she rakes her eyes over him, examining each miniscule movement of his face, searching for emotions; guilt, innocence, apology. Some glue in his expression to keep her heart in one piece. </p>
<p>“It’s for the wedding,” he replies, finally, and Phryne blinks in confusion. </p>
<p>“What wedding?” </p>
<p>Jack takes a step back from her, hands burrowing into his pockets, countenance submissive in a way that grates against her still raging fury, leaves her feeling as nonplussed as his next words. </p>
<p>“Rosie’s getting remarried.”</p>
<p>The statement brings her up short, a snuffer held tight over the furious flame of her rage. She stares back at him for several silent seconds whilst she processes the words. “She’s what?”</p>
<p>“She’s getting remarried,” Jack repeats, offering a small shrug as he looks back up to meet her eye. His gaze is drenched in an earnestness that’s almost begging, a plea for her to understand, to see the truth that lies behind the curtain of assumed hurt she has drawn. </p>
<p>Still, it makes no sense – does not explain the metered lines of amorous confessions she had moments ago read with her own eyes after sidling up behind him at his writing desk. </p>
<p>It doesn’t explain why Jack is using their own, precious, shared love language to communicate with his ex-wife.</p>
<p>Phryne stands wordlessly, eyes fixed on him as she waits to hear the answer, fault lines twinging in her heart as they wait to see if they’ll become fractures. </p>
<p>“They’re only having a small service,” he continues. “But they each want to say a little something for themselves. Rosie asked my advice, that’s all, she just… she just needed some help finding the right words.” </p>
<p>And that… that makes an almost alarming amount of sense – so much so that Phryne feels her mouth fall open, arms falling back to her sides where they have, till now, been held defensively across her. </p>
<p>“So…” she murmurs, “so then they really are just… suggestions?” </p>
<p>If the knowledge of Rosie’s planned marriage had snuffed the flames of her anger, this confession acts as a torrential downpour, washing away both fire and fury – leaving nothing behind but smouldering indignation at her own mistake. </p>
<p>She feels at once relieved and foolish, and nettled by both.</p>
<p>“Yes,” Jack affirms, in answer to her dawning comprehension. “God, Phryne, how could you ever think… you know I would never– ”</p>
<p>“I know,” she interrupts him, though, the words speaking themselves instinctually on her own behalf. Of <em> course </em> she knows. Jack is nothing if not the epitome of constancy; it runs so deep within him, in fact, that she’d mused once (long ago, less in love, wondering at why divorce proceedings mightn’t be quicker and Jack Robinson mightn’t be more fickle) that he’d likely far rather surrender his life than his loyalty. </p>
<p>Phryne knows exactly how deep Jack’s fidelity runs, and she feels a sudden wave of remorse crash over her at the idea that she had doubted it, covering the burnt out bones of her believed hurt with the gristly tissues of guilt.</p>
<p>“I know,” she repeats, a sober whisper. “God, Jack, I’m sorry – only I… I saw ‘Rosie’ and I saw the Shakespeare and I thought… well, I thought…”</p>
<p>She can’t finish, shaking her head instead. It seems so ludicrous, suddenly, with this simple truth to explain it – and yet the very sight of those words, lovingly inscribed in Jack’s scrawling hand, had stirred something within her she hadn’t even known was there to stir; awoken a slumbering demon of insecurity she’d long thought exorcised. </p>
<p>Jack, though, seems oddly calm – stepping back towards her, closing the distance, head tilted to examine her with questioning eyes. “You thought I was using the same lines to re-woo my ex-wife as I used on you?” he asks, the words soft and ever-so-gently teasing.</p>
<p>Briefly, Phryne cycles through all the ways she could respond to this – more anger, denial, witticism. With a sigh, she opts, instead, for simple honesty. </p>
<p>“I know how much you loved Rosie, Jack,” she whispers, almost afraid of the vulnerability that comes apparent in the admission. But this is Jack, and she doesn’t want to hide her feelings on the matter from him when they have been so careful to be honest with each other in the short months since they consummated their own tension – <em>certainly</em> not when this strange, hidden insecurity could today have undone them. Nor, in fact, when there are still parts left of this that are bothering her. “This isn’t the first time I’ve worried about you giving me up for her.” </p>
<p>Jack’s face falls at this, and he looks confused for a moment until the memory clearly slots itself in place in his mind.</p>
<p>
  <em> “I thought you were with Rosie.” </em>
</p>
<p>He huffs out a quiet breath, reaches out in a silent query which she answers by slipping her hands into his. “Phryne, I loved Rosie, dearly – but a very long time ago. And whilst I might still love her as a friend… surely you know that there’s nothing like that left between us? Even if there <em> were</em>, I would never… Phryne, how could you ever think I would do that to you?” </p>
<p>The words are so sincere they sound almost pained – like her heartache over this is wounding him just as deeply – and she turns her hands around in his to squeeze them. </p>
<p>“I don’t,” she breathes, eyes on his, wanting him to know that she means this – that this has not come from some silent lack of trust she has been lying to him about. “I <em> didn’t</em>… Jack, I’ve never doubted you like that – never – but I saw those quotes and I… I…” </p>
<p>She doesn’t know quite how to explain it, though, to put into words the visceral response she had felt at the idea he was writing Shakespeare to another woman. To <em> Rosie</em>.</p>
<p>“It’s alright,” he sighs, though, shaking his head, expression turning reflective. “You know, I… I probably would have had the same reaction, in your place. Those words are ours and it can’t have been… I can understand how it looked.”</p>
<p>Phryne offers him a small smile of thanks for this acknowledgement, this concurrence that she might have reacted too quickly, yes, but not without any reason. She takes a half-step closer. </p>
<p>“Do you know that the day you first quoted Shakespeare to me is the day that I first…” She stops, takes a steadying breath to help the words come out. “Jack, it may have taken a while for me to fall, but that moment was when I first stepped off the cliff. It’s been ours for so long – was ours when there wasn’t anything more to us – and the idea that you might have been considering going back to her, might have been using <em> our </em> words to do it...”</p>
<p>Jack lifts a hand to her cheek, warm and reassuring. </p>
<p>“Would it help at all to know that Rosie was never all that interested in Shakespeare, anyway?” he asks, gentle, the tiniest smirk playing at his lips. The good-natured comeback has what she assumes is the desired effect, pulling a soft (if still somewhat rueful) laugh from her. He has always had something of a skill for rousing her from her more ridiculous rages without invalidating the feelings that led to them, and she appreciates it no end. </p>
<p>“Phryne, she only asked me about it because her new fiancé apparently <em> is </em> interested, and she’d like to surprise him.”</p>
<p>Phryne raises an eyebrow at this. “Dare I note the obvious, there?”</p>
<p>Jack chuckles. “Ah, but see the difference is that she never learnt any for me – but then I suppose we all grow in how we love the same way we grow in who we are.”</p>
<p>“Well, aren’t you the philosopher,” she quips, and he rolls his eyes at it fondly. </p>
<p>She falls quiet, allowing the returned banter to reassure her, the knowledge that this was all a misunderstanding to calm her. It settles slowly, rippling through her in waves that grow incrementally smaller with every breath. </p>
<p>Jack is still hers, has not ceased to be for even a second, and she is not about to lose him to old love renewed. </p>
<p>There is one thing she finds she cannot help but seek further assurance on, though. </p>
<p>“You really never quoted Shakespeare to her?” And it’s an utterly ridiculous, petty string, she knows, yet she still cannot help but pull on it. </p>
<p>“I quoted many things,” Jack hums, honest, but his fingers brush reassuringly across her skin to cup her neck, thumb grazing her jaw. “Certainly in the beginning – but she was always more of a fan of the Romantics than the Bard.”</p>
<p>“So, Shakespeare is…”</p>
<p>“Ours,” he affirms, eyes fixed on hers, something burning in them that ignites a fresh fire of its own in the pit of her stomach. It’s quite absurd, she’s aware, to be this possessive, this satisfied, yet she finds herself both relieved and aroused to know that this shared language has always been theirs, just theirs, rather than some formula applied to each of Jack’s loves regardless. </p>
<p>“Since all alike my songs and praises be to one, of one, still such and ever so,” he murmurs in quiet confirmation, and Phryne smirks at it, despite the way the words make something curl contentedly inside her. </p>
<p>“I’m relatively certain that’s only half the sentence, Jack.”</p>
<p>He smiles back, eyes glinting. “Perhaps, but it’s the sentiment of that particular half that speaks to me.” Jack leans forward, resting his forehead against hers, and she feels her breath catch as she looks up at him through her eyelashes. “My songs and praises are for one person, Phryne, and always will be.”</p>
<p>Phryne pulls back, reaching up to take his face reverently between her hands, one lifting to push back the curl that has fallen across his forehead in his frantic worry. She watches him watch her for a long moment, anxious as he waits for final confirmation of her comprehension, her forgiveness. “Kind is my love today, tomorrow kind,” she whispers back to him with an affectionately teasing smile. </p>
<p>His own relief at the endorsement of her words is palpable, though, despite the teasing, a weight that lifts from his eyes and shoulders and leaves him somehow freer. “Still constant in a wondrous excellence,” he adds, assures, <em>vows</em>, one hand lifting to curl his fingers around hers and bring them to his lips, pressing a kiss against them. “Phryne,” he says then, determination swirling with desperation in his eyes. “I need you to know that I would never– ”</p>
<p>“I know,” she cuts him off, pressing a finger lightly to his lips, words emphatic as his own declaration. “I know, Jack.”</p>
<p>She returns one hand to his, twining their fingers together and tugging his to her waist, raising her lips to his as she does to capture them with gentle pressure, gratified with how she feels him calm beneath her kiss. </p>
<p>“Would it make you feel any better to know we’re both invited to the wedding?” he murmurs after a moment, and she draws back again in surprise. </p>
<p>“Both of us?”</p>
<p>Jack hums in affirmation, and Phryne grimaces. </p>
<p>“I think that might make me feel worse, actually,” she laughs, nervous, guilt for doubting either and both of them continuing to grow as she wrestles with her own dizzying emotions. </p>
<p>As thoroughly relieved as she is, as gladdening as she finds the assurance that Jack is, and always has been, faithful – she finds herself still somewhat laid waste by the fiery storm of her own anger, faltering at the emptiness that follows its extinguishment. The sudden arresting of her momentum might be a good thing, considering it is Jack’s innocence that caused it, yet she cannot help but feel disorientated by it.</p>
<p>The hollowed frame of emotion is fleshing itself once more with comfort and contrition, both – but beneath the bones there still sits a smoking indignation at this whole, ludicrous affair. </p>
<p>Relieved or not, she still finds herself vexed with him, with herself, with the universe for throwing her onto such unexpected and unsteadying ground. </p>
<p>“Phryne?” Jack breaks through her spiralling, voice gentle. “Tell me what you need.”</p>
<p>She stares back at him, drinking in the concern in his eyes, trying to let it douse those remaining embers. There’s a part of her that would happily stand here and drown in that alone – in Jack’s tangible worry that she might decide, somehow, that she does not believe his explanation, that she will resume her furious march away from him. It is, after all, the solid proof of innocence that she finds she wants, even if she doesn’t strictly need.</p>
<p>Another part, though, is still frustrated by his own calmness, by his lack of anger where hers has been so tempestuous. He might understand how the mistake had been made, might empathise with the fear and the hurt that had overtaken her – but she had still doubted him. She had still broken his trust by storming away in wrath before he’d had so much as a chance to explain.</p>
<p>And part of her – perhaps the part that is still reeling, still unsettled – wants to have that fight, wants him to express the hurt she must have caused him herself with that betrayal. </p>
<p>Part of her wants to see his own anger – because its absence makes her feel that this is all far less resolved than the reverent touch of their hands on each other might make it appear. It makes her wonder, suddenly, if there is more to his halved quotation than the simple desire to be concise with the sentiment.  </p>
<p>“I need you to be honest with your anger,” she admits, examining him carefully for his response. “I need you not to hide it from me, not to carry it about in secret until it grinds itself into resentment.”</p>
<p>Jack’s jaw tightens. “I’m not angry.”</p>
<p>“Yes,” she argues. “You are. Of course you are, Jack. I’d be angry.”</p>
<p>She watches the tiny battle in his eyes, his own private wrestling match of emotion. His fingers tighten and relax on her waist, and his gaze falls to her lips, stays there, staunchly avoiding her own. </p>
<p>“I’m angry that you didn’t wait,” he whispers, slightly choked. “That you didn’t hesitate before assuming the worst and walking away from me.”</p>
<p>“Good,” she replies. “I’m angry about that, too.”</p>
<p>At this he looks up, but his eyes are full of hurt rather than anger. “I understand the mistake, Phryne, I do, I just wish you’d have given me a moment’s pause before you ran.”</p>
<p>“So do I,” she agrees, and she <em> does</em>. In any other circumstance she’s almost certain that she would have – has done, in fact, in moments past when women have presumed to needle her with the idea they might have managed to steal him. It’s the honest truth that she’s never doubted him like this before, and she hates that she did – hates the perfect storm of circumstance that played her insecurities in painful and discordant harmony. Hates that she hadn’t even been aware of all this kindling lying dormant within her until it had ignited into a blazing, wrathful wildfire. </p>
<p>“Do you know how much I love you?” he asks, and she appreciates the honesty in the frustrated desperation of his words. </p>
<p>“Yes,” she answers, eyes flicking to his lips and back. “I believe I do.”</p>
<p>It isn’t a lie – she does know, has known a long time, now. She knows it and trusts it, trusts <em> him</em>, yet it seems that on this one unfortunate matter, she must secretly have still doubted. </p>
<p>She is not his ex-wife, and will never be his wife. </p>
<p>“I don’t need you to be Rosie, Phryne,” he tells her, as if reading the thought in her face, and her eyes fall closed at the reassurance. “I don’t <em> want </em> you to be Rosie. All I want is you, just as you are, and what we have together, now.”  </p>
<p>The hand on her waist pulls her closer, eliminates the final space left between them. </p>
<p>“I know,” she breathes, eyes intent on his – and logically, she does. </p>
<p>“Do you need me to prove it to you?” he asks, fingers moving to dance up her arms. </p>
<p>“No,” she replies, that simmering indignation flaring briefly – though it’s largely undermined by the breathlessness of it. It’s true; she doesn’t <em> need </em> him to prove it but she is still smarting, still raw where her emotions are reshaping themselves over the damage of her rage. </p>
<p>Jack smiles. </p>
<p>“Do you <em> want </em>me to?”</p>
<p>“God, yes.”</p>
<p>With that, she falls; allows him to catch her, one hand at her waist and the other a soft caress at her cheek. His mouth is warm and hungry where it moves to claim hers, and it’s with the tinges of torment in his kisses that he finally seems to let her feel his own terror – the anger and hurt and panic she had caused him with her intended departure. </p>
<p>His presumed wrong had almost broken her – but she had almost walked out on his innocence – and this knowledge finally quenches any last fire but her own, aching want for him.</p>
<p>It’s clear, too – when he moans at the feel of her wandering hands – that he might need to know she is still his just as much as she needs to know he is hers. </p>
<p>Phryne reaches for his shirt and tears at it, claws it apart before pushing it and braces both from his shoulders, hands eager in their caresses as she explores the skin beneath. She wants all of him, now, fast, and the movements of his own fingers echo her desperation. </p>
<p>Her world seems to narrow to sensation alone; the whisper of fabric as they peel it hungrily from each other, wordless, mouths and hands tracing the uncovered skin with touches as hungry as they are reverent. The roughness of the wallpaper where her back rubs against it, pressed into the hard wall by the weight of Jack’s body. The taste of him, familiar as her own face in the mirror, and seasoned with reassurance almost as strong as the whiskey that lingers on his tongue. </p>
<p>Jack is a perfect medley of contradictions – his kisses adoring but edged with teeth, the brush of his fingers featherlight but chased by the bite of his nails, the words he chants against her skin almost idolatrous despite the silent first half of his quoted confession. </p>
<p>
  <em> Let not my love be called idolatry, nor my beloved as an idol show. </em>
</p>
<p>But perhaps this is precisely why he’d omitted it, Phryne realises, the thought sending a brief spike of worry through her, perhaps he’d already been anticipating a need to win her back over with desperate worship?</p>
<p>His mouth moves from hers to nip kisses one by one down her body, across her breasts, along her hip bones, and through dampening curls before his tongue is teasing her entrance, fingers tight on her thighs where he pulls them further apart, opens her wider to his greedy exploration. </p>
<p>Phryne’s eyes fall closed, teeth sinking into her lip, mind blanking as she finds herself unable to keep from surrendering to the extolling of his mouth at her cunt. His tongue dips hungrily inside her over and over until he replaces it with fingers, lips moving to her clit, sucking and licking with tender dedication until she is whimpering with release beneath his mouth.</p>
<p>Her fingers slide into his hair, the feel of it almost too soft under her touch, too gentle when she feels so raw. She had wanted the proof of his devotion, <em>asked</em> for it, but the desperate tenderness of his love feels somehow wrong. His idolisation, as pleasurable as it may be, is undeserved; an unmerited apology for a sin he never actually committed. As thirsty as she'd been for his assurances, if anything, she is the sinner here – and this reverent praise is too much and not enough all at once.</p>
<p>“Jack,” she gasps, letting her own nails sink into his scalp. “Please.”</p>
<p>She needs him, but not like this; she needs the stretch of him inside her, the friction of his thrusts to ground her again from this false heaven. </p>
<p>She is far from divine (would never want nor claim to be, but especially so today, when she had succumbed so fast to the seduction of wrathful demons within her) – and the sensations of his veneration are more, in this moment, than she can take. She doesn't want to be worshipped, now, but instead for him to love her plainly as the human she is; that they both are. Their love has always been so deeply rooted in their own humanity, in knowledge of both of their fallibility. Jack's constancy has never been a symptom of idolatry, and she needs to know that her own brief lack of faith has not worried him into feeling he should protest otherwise. </p>
<p>Blessedly, though, he seems to understand, pulling back from her with one last careful kiss before rising to claim her mouth again. She moans at the taste of herself on him, hands sliding across his shoulder blades and pulling him closer. </p>
<p>“Inside me,” she begs against his lips, and his hands return to her waist, grazing her skin and sending shivers rippling through her.</p>
<p>“Not here,” he breathes, lacing his fingers into hers and pulling her away from the wall, back around the corner to his study. She freezes for a moment at the threshold, staring at the room – the half drunk whiskey, the crumpled paper on the floor; the undisturbed scene of assumed heartbreak. </p>
<p>Jack notices, pressing a kiss into her hair, then one behind her ear, her jaw, claiming her lips with his again. She allows the gentle reassurance of his kisses for a moment, then pushes him back, walking him around to his chair and climbing onto his lap, hands on his shoulders. </p>
<p>“Tell me again,” she says, eyes fixed on his as she starts to grind her hips, rubbing herself eagerly against his hardened length. The action pulls a throaty groan from Jack, his eyes falling briefly closed at the feel of her wetness coating his skin. </p>
<p>“Tell you what?” he chokes out.</p>
<p>She lifts her hips, lining him up with her entrance, teasing herself on the head of his cock. She leans her head forward, lips brushing against his. “Shakespeare.” </p>
<p>Jack holds her gaze, hands moving to her hips to guide her, pulling her down onto him with as much deliberacy as she moves with herself to take him inside her, sinking slowly onto his length as he speaks. </p>
<p>“It’s ours,” he promises, ragged and earnest.</p>
<p>“Ours,” she repeats, searching his face, lapping up the truth in it, relishing the assurance as much as the rocking of his hips that pushes him up, deeper inside her. She gasps out at the feel of him, nails digging into his skin as she pulls off him again and sinks back down, eyes falling closed. He lets her set their rhythm to start with, hands sitting lightly on her hips as she rides him with slow, steady movements – but as she starts to increase their pace she finally feels his fingers firm on her, lowering her carefully from chair to floor. He pulls a leg around his waist before driving back up into her, and Phryne moans. </p>
<p>Her head falls to the rug beneath them, back arching in pleasure at this new angle, at the way he meets her, at last, human to human rather than fearful worship. She keeps her eyes open to watch his face as he starts to move again within her. Jack’s own eyes are closed, a tightness in the corners she finds herself wanting to kiss away. </p>
<p>She reaches up a hand to his cheek.</p>
<p>“Look at me.”</p>
<p>He does, eyes opening again, gaze falling to hers. In the harsh light of ecstasy she sees the true unfiltered fear, the reflections of horror at the idea he might have lost her today to nothing more than a ridiculous misunderstanding.</p>
<p>She pulls him down to her, claims his mouth again, grinding her hips up to meet his own increasingly desperate thrusts. </p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “For doubting you.” </p>
<p>His head falls to her neck, the pressure of his fingers on her thigh turning bruising as he shifts her, pressing deeper, harder, exactly where she needs him most. </p>
<p>“I’m sorry, too,” he breathes, bites the words into her sweat-slicked skin, and Phryne surrenders herself back to pure sensation; to the sharpness of his teeth where they continue to graze against her, the heat of him above her, the exquisite slide of his hard flesh as he moves inside her. </p>
<p>Something reverent lingers in Jack’s movements, but now he fucks her with all the unguarded desperation of their near miss, the needy rocking of his hips finally matching the rawness she herself has been feeling as they wring reassurances from each other's bodies. She claws at him, nails scrabbling for purchase against his skin, needing him closer, needing <em> more</em>, and he pushes the leg he is holding backwards to shift her hips again, bottoming out inside her. </p>
<p>“Jack,” she gasps, and he lifts his head from her neck to kiss her, an unfairly gentle juxtaposition to the naked passion of his thrusts that finally nudges her over the edge.</p>
<p>She comes with a release of tension so overwhelming that it tugs a soft scream from her, clinging to Jack where he has paused in his movements, her inner walls clenching around his cock. </p>
<p>He kisses her through it, then slowly grinds his hips up again, once, twice, three times – and she watches the same thing happen on his own face after he withdraws from her for his own climax, all-consuming relief spreading through him in the shadow of release, forehead falling to hers before he closes the distance between their lips to kiss her again, languid and so much more assured. </p>
<p>Phryne smiles into it, a proper smile, settled and satisfied. Jack moves to one side, careful not to crush her as he collapses to the floor beside her, catching his breath. She turns her head to look at him as she catches her own, the start of a smirk pulling at her lips. </p>
<p>“So, when’s the wedding?”</p>
<p>Jack huffs out a laugh, shaking his head. “Why, do you want to go?”</p>
<p>“Yes,” she replies, surprising herself with how sure the word comes out. But Rosie is Jack’s friend – her friend, too – and now the clouds of betrayal have lifted, the flames of fury doused, she finds herself calm and assured in the knowledge that it’s the right thing to do. It isn’t fair, after all, to let her unwarranted jealousy stand in the way of them supporting her. </p>
<p>“Would you rather I didn’t help with the Shakespeare, though?” he asks, turning his own head to meet her eye. His expression is no longer worried, the fear dissolved, but there is an open curiosity there, a genuine question, absent of reproach. </p>
<p>She loves him quite completely for it. </p>
<p>“No,” she murmurs, winding her fingers into his where their hands lie between them. “No, you should help.”</p>
<p>He raises an eyebrow. “Are you sure?”</p>
<p>Phryne nods. “I can’t think of anyone better equipped. Besides...” She props herself up, leaning over to bring their lips closer, trailing a finger up his chest. “I seem to recall you saying that your songs and praises are all alike to one, and of one, only?”</p>
<p>“To you,” he promises, hand coming to cover hers, to hold it over his heart. “For you.” </p>
<p>“Still such?” she asks, tone jesting though she finds her breath catch as she awaits the answer, eyes fixed on his. “Even though I walked away?”</p>
<p>The returned glint in his eyes is enough to reassure any lingering tendrils of doubt in her both of his remorse for the hurt he caused, and his forgiveness for the hurt she did, and Phryne allows herself to rejoice in it. There is devotion in his gaze that she would happily drown in, yet enough humour to make clear that, though his love might be true, though he might even be happy to kneel at the altar to prove it on occasion, she still remains blessedly human to him. Not that she’d complain about being worshipped a little in future, perhaps, when the act can be one of joy rather than desperation.</p>
<p>Jack lifts his own head, brushes his lips against hers, then pulls back again to lift her hand to his mouth and kiss it. When he does finally reply, it’s with an earnest whisper that she knows, undoubtedly, is true. </p>
<p>“Ever so.” </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>The quotes are taken from Sonnet 105:<br/> <br/><i>Let not my love be called idolatry,<br/>Nor my belovèd as an idol show,<br/>Since all alike my songs and praises be<br/>To one, of one, still such, and ever so.<br/>Kind is my love today, tomorrow kind,<br/>Still constant in a wondrous excellence;<br/>Therefore my verse to constancy confined,<br/>One thing expressing, leaves out difference.<br/>Fair, kind, and true is all my argument,<br/>Fair, kind, and true, varying to other words;<br/>And in this change is my invention spent—<br/>Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords.<br/>Fair, kind, and true have often lived alone,<br/>Which three, till now, never kept seat in one.</i></p></blockquote></div></div>
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